Everybody's Afraid of Something
by Ness Frost
Summary: Halloween special. All Goku and Vegeta wanted was a good sparring session. But they get more than they bargained for when they decide to check out a new room on the Lookout... Some language, mild violence and a good old-fashioned dose of terror.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own DBZ. I just like to put its characters in awkward and amusing situations. Happy Halloween!

* * *

"All right Trunks, you ready?"

"Yeah!" The boy had run to the door and yanked it open before the bell even rang, oversized bag in hand, wearing… well, Vegeta couldn't be sure _what_ he was wearing. Something black and hideously impractical, he could tell that much. The white powder on his face and the trickle of red paint running from the corner of his mouth only added to the ridiculousness.

Absolutely not, he'd said when he'd first seen. Kakarot might have thought it acceptable for his brat to run around wearing something out of a bad comic book, but no son of _his_ was going out in public looking like that.

"Wow Trunks! You look scary! Now are the two of you ready to get some candy?"

…of course, that was assuming the woman didn't have any say in how he raised his son. Which she did.

"Yeah!" two voices chorused in enthusiastic response.

As Trunks exchanged greetings with Kakarot's youngest brat, the older brat looked in his direction. "You sure you don't want to come, Vegeta?"

Vegeta crossed his arms, resisting the urge to punch the boy for the earnestness in his voice. "No." Tonight, he would be doing as he always did, and sparring with Kakarot—as his oldest brat knew full well.

"All right then, have fun!" Before Vegeta could say another word, the door had closed again and the three of them were moving away from the house—on foot, like pathetic commoners. And all because they wanted to pass for weak Earthlings…

"Hmph." Vegeta yanked on his glove. He might have learned to live on this planet—he might even have learned to like it—but unlike some, he had not forgotten his Saiyan pride.

And training was not _fun_.

"Hey Vegeta!"

He had been too lost in his own thoughts to notice the voice's accompanying energy signature, so the sudden greeting took him completely by surprise. It was only thanks to decades of harsh discipline that he managed not to jump hundreds of feet into the air, or blast the house out of reflex. As it was, his body still gave a start as he turned toward the voice's origin, to see a grinning face looking in at him from the open window.

"Kakarot!" he bellowed. "How many times do I have to tell you to come in through the front door?"

"But this was faster, and you're gonna have to come outside anyway." Kakarot rested his chin on his forearms, which were resting on the sill.

Vegeta felt his eye twitch in annoyance. He was going to develop a permanent tic at this rate. "Wait for me outside."

He didn't say a word to Kakarot when he stepped out the door; he was in a foul enough mood without the other's clowning. Though he knew he would feel better after a good sparring session—he always did—until he'd reached that point, Vegeta didn't trust himself not to say something he would later regret. Therefore, he kept his jaw clenched firmly shut as he led Kakarot across the lawn and went about unlocking the gravity room.

"Um, Vegeta?"

Vegeta paused, one hand still on the access panel, and closed his eyes as he prayed for patience. "What?"

"It's just… I was thinking maybe we could do something different tonight. I was up at the Lookout the other day," he continued hastily, probably sensing Vegeta's mood, "and Popo was saying something about installing a new room where the Hyperbolic Time Chamber used to be. Popo was really excited; it's supposed to be even better than the Chamber."

_Now_ Kakarot had his interest. Vegeta turned to face him, removing his hand from the access panel as he did so. "Better in what way?"

"I dunno." Kakarot shrugged, and Vegeta resisted the urge to club him over the head. "But I did most of my training up at the Lookout, back when I was getting ready to take on Piccolo, and I got a lot stronger by using the Pendulum Room, and apparently Dende said that this will help both of us in particular…"

As Kakarot spoke, Vegeta felt his scowl of frustration being slowly replaced by a manic grin, and before the other could finish, he turned on his heel, leaping into the air. "Let's go."

"I knew you'd be interested!"

Vegeta didn't grace that with a response, instead focusing on the glorious release of the wind whipping against his face as he flew. Already it seemed as if his stress was falling away from him, as if he'd left it back on the ground.

They reached their destination within minutes. "Dende?" Kakarot called as his boots touched down on the white tiles. "Mr. Popo? Hey, is anyone around?"

"Hmph. Maybe the Guardian's scared." Vegeta crossed his arms with a smirk as he landed next to Kakarot.

"Well, you did hit him after he healed you…"

"That was years ago!"

Kakarot, however, was ignoring him, instead dashing all over the Lookout, poking his head into every single doorway he could find—some of them twice.

"They've got to be around here somewhere. Dende and Popo wouldn't just take off…"

"Damn it, Kakarot! We came up here to train; who cares if the Namek and his servant are here or not? Let's just go in already!"

"Well… if you say so." All at once Kakarot stopped his mad dashing, and though he still looked dubious, led Vegeta to the door that had once been the entrance to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

"Now let's see." There was some sort of large knob set into the wall. Vegeta looked over his shoulder as he set his hand against the edge of the knob. "Popo mentioned the door won't open until we set the intensity level… he didn't really say for what though…"

"Doesn't matter," Vegeta interrupted. "Turn it up all the way."

"Okay then." Kakarot placed his thumb against the knob, turning it until it wouldn't move any further. As soon as his fingers broke contact, something clicked and the door eased open, revealing a yawning maw of pitch-black.

"…do you want to go in?"

"What are you, afraid? Of a dark room?" With a huff Vegeta pushed past him and entered the doorway.

Shrugging, Kakarot followed. His entrance was immediately accompanied by the sound of the door slamming shut behind them.

"Damn it, Kakarot, I haven't found the lights yet! Now open it back up again!" Now that the door was closed, not even a single photon of light leaked in from the outside. Just to test his perceptions, Vegeta held a hand directly in front of his face. Nothing.

In spite of his order, the door did not re-open, nor was there any sign of light. _Do I have to do everything myself?_ Growling low in his throat, Vegeta groped behind him in search of a light switch, or, failing that, the doorknob—only for his hand to encounter empty space. He must have walked in much further than he'd initially thought.

"Kakarot, tell me you remember how to turn on the lights." Turning back the way he had come, Vegeta groped his way back toward the door—only to once again meet with nothing but air. "…Kakarot?"

This was worse than just wandering in further than he'd thought he had—he must have gotten disoriented. Vegeta _never_ lost his sense of direction, but this room, it seemed, had a way of toying with one's perceptions. What's more, it seemed as if the clown had managed to disappear on him as well. He was on his own.

"Damn it!" he shouted, more to vent frustration than anything, since Kakarot was evidently no longer in hearing range. Well, there was nothing for it but to try to find his own way out. Turning to face in a direction that he thought would lead him back to the door—though he really couldn't be sure of anything anymore—Vegeta started walking.

* * *

"Vegeta? Hey, Vegeta! Ow!" Goku rubbed his head where it had cracked against some unknown hard object; it really was pitch-black in here, and he couldn't see a thing. "Hey, Vegeta! If this is your idea of a joke, it isn't funny!" Still no answer.

Sighing, Goku groped around behind him until his hand fumbled its way to the handle of the door. He supposed he'd just have to prop it open until they figured out how to turn on the lights.

Turning the handle, Goku pulled the door open—only to be met with more blackness. A jolt went through his body as he briefly panicked—why was the Lookout dark? Had they been attacked by another enemy during the few moments that he and Vegeta had been in the room? What sort of horror could be powerful enough to blot out the stars?

"Dende!" he shouted. "Hey Dende, what's going on?" The only answer he got was that of his own voice coming back at him.

Many people who knew Goku thought of him as an idiot—and in many ways, they were right. He was never going to stop believing in people's ability to change, never mind that Vegeta never tired of telling him he was hopelessly naïve, and he knew that the sort of book learning his eldest son had mastered by the age of three would forever be beyond him.

But Goku was not stupid. He had lived without sight of another person for years on end since his grandfather had died, and had managed to survive just fine on his own prior to Bulma's arrival. He had been able to take care of himself from a very young age, and most of his childhood had been spent wandering the wilderness where he had lived with his grandfather. During this time he had explored more caves, woodlands, and riverbeds than he could count, learning the unique properties of each. And he knew that open spaces did not produce an echo.

After a few minutes of thinking, he figured out what must have happened. There had to have been another door inside the room, which was very close to the entrance but did not lead back outside. The few minutes he had spent in the dark had simply disoriented him enough that he had grabbed the wrong handle by mistake.

Immediately, Goku began to laugh. "Ah Vegeta, I did something stupid again," he said out loud. "You're probably thinking I'm an idiot right now—but don't worry, we'll get to sparring soon enough!"

With that, he turned back and grabbed the door handle once again.

It was locked.

* * *

"When we get out of here, Kakarot, I'm going to kill you!" Vegeta, when he had set out, had been uncertain of whether he was going the right way—and now he was sure that he was not. For one thing, the floor beneath his feet had become increasingly uneven, and he had nearly tripped a few times already due to some trivial obstacle that he couldn't see. He didn't turn around, however. Right way or not, he knew that at some point, he would have to hit a wall, which he would then be able to follow back to the door.

He refused to think about the possibility that the room might not even _have_ walls.

Vegeta was suddenly thrown off-balance as his foot caught yet again. This time, however, it was worse than a mere stumble—caught completely off-guard, he pitched toward the ground, and threw his arms out to catch himself. Before he could hit the ground, however, his hands met with a solid surface. His nostrils were assaulted by the scent of moist earth.

"What the…?"

Pushing himself back to his feet, Vegeta ran his hand over the surface that had broken his fall. It was uneven, but not quite rough, and the many bumps and irregularities slid smoothly under his gloved hand.

Where in Yemma's name was he?

Pulling his hand back to his body, Vegeta removed the glove and reached out to touch the wall again. Warm earth met his fingertips, sliding beneath his hand when it should have crumbled. Such a texture could not be produced by moisture alone…

"Shit!" Vegeta threw his soiled glove to the ground, wiping his fingers on the back of the other before disposing of it with equal disgust. During the course of his lifetime he'd visited many alien planets and seen every weird environment the universe had to offer, and Vegeta knew that places like this didn't just _happen_. The tunnel—for that's what it was—had to have been made by something, and what's more, it had been made recently.

Well, the Prince of all Saiyans wasn't about to take this lying down. It didn't matter where he was or how he had gotten there; no matter what had made this tunnel, it could not possibly be a threat to him, especially given what he was about to do. Vegeta reached deep inside himself, ready to pull forth the energy that would allow him to transform…

…only to find that he couldn't.

* * *

Goku rattled the door handle again in the vain hope that it had just caught on something the first time, or that he had failed to pull hard enough, but it still wouldn't budge.

"Aw, man!" Goku stood there for a few seconds, pondering his options, but in the end there was only one thing left to do.

"I think that Dende will understand," he muttered, grasping the door handle firmly. "But I really hope Mr. Popo doesn't find out about this!" Bearing down with all of his strength, he threw his shoulder against the door.

It didn't move an inch.

Just to make sure, Goku rattled the door handle again, not holding back anything, only to find it still fixed firmly in place.

"Man, that door must be made of some strong stuff!" For a second he considered transforming, but then decided against it. He _really_ didn't want to risk Popo's wrath.

With a sigh, he turned away from the door. Hopefully there would be another way out.

Stretching his arms out to the sides, Goku was surprised when each of his hands encountered a smooth, hard surface. He must be in a hallway.

Goku allowed his left hand to remain on the wall, but cocked his right to his side. He didn't think he would be attacked on the Lookout, but many of the rooms he'd been in harbored challenges to say the least. Even though his _ki_-sense was not giving him an indication of anyone nearby—not even Vegeta—he wanted to be ready in case of surprises.

Keeping his left hand on the wall, Goku set off down the hallway.

After some time of walking—he didn't know how long, as he had no way to keep track—Goku realized that the hallway was not quite as dark as he had thought. He could make out a series of regularly-spaced bulbs on the ceiling above him, and even though the light they gave was incredibly dim, it still allowed him to make out vague outlines, and Goku wondered how he could have failed to notice them before.

It wasn't too long, however, before he realized that they were slowly getting brighter. There were a lot of lights like that in Capsule Corp., he remembered now—they were designed to turn on gradually, so they wouldn't hurt people's eyes. Bulma had once told him that seeing the effects of the Solar Flare was what had given her the idea.

The highest luminosity of these lights, however, didn't seem bright enough to hurt anyone's eyes. When at long last they came on in full they illuminated the hallway in a sickly shade of yellowish-green that only just revealed the details to Goku's sight, and even then, some of them were still flickering.

Still, it was better than nothing. Taking the time to stop and look around for real, Goku noted that the hallway he had been traversing was hardly the sort of place one would expect to find on the Lookout. The walls, floor, and ceiling alike were made up of unpainted concrete, and a few rusty metal pipes ran the length of the ceiling above him. Evidently these pipes were not well-maintained; they were nearly eaten through in places, and at every joining some unknown liquid was dripping to form puddles on the floor. When Goku took a deep breath, the air smelled musty.

"Why the heck would Dende put in a place like this?" he asked out loud, scratching the back of his head. It didn't seem at all useful for training, or meditation, or, well—anything. It was the most boring place in which Goku had ever set foot.

Still, he kept walking. Nothing seemed to change. Goku was just about to turn back and try the door again in the hopes that someone had come along and unlocked it, but then he noticed that something was different.

He squinted. There, at the end of the hallway, was a set of double doors.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Goku quickened his stride. Whether they led to the exit or not, at least he knew this hallway didn't go on forever.

"I hope these aren't locked too," he said to himself, still thinking out loud. "I don't want to be walking up and down this hallway for the rest of my life! Especially since there's nothing to eat here!"

Reaching the end of the hallway at last, Goku placed his hand against the doors. To his relief, they were not locked, and swung easily inwards at his touch. He stuck his head into the room.

To Goku's disappointment, there was still not an exit in sight, but at least it broke the monotony a little. The room was larger than the hallway had been, with a slightly higher ceiling, and Goku took the opportunity to do a few stretches as he looked around. The room was illuminated by several lights of the same sickly yellowish-green color as those in the hallway, though these were larger and somewhat brighter. All around the walls were metal cabinets, and right in the middle of the room was a large metal table with a number of leather straps on the sides.

Curious, Goku walked over to examine the latter, but after a few minutes of looking he still could not make anything of it. So he turned to the cabinets instead. To his disappointment, however, none of them held the key to the hall door, only a collection of metal tools, most of which were wickedly sharp.

He couldn't even find any food.

Sighing to himself, he walked instead to the door on the opposite side of the room and pulled it open—only to find that he wasn't as alone as he had thought. There, standing on the other side, was a man wearing a long white coat, a white mask, and a white cap over his head. As a matter of fact, the only visible part of his body was his eyes.

"Hi," Goku started. "Um, this is going to sound really silly, but I'm kind of locked in, and I was wondering if you knew where I could find a… key…"

As Goku spoke, the other remained silent, and not even his eyes gave the slightest twinge of reaction. Lacking answers, verbal or otherwise, Goku allowed his gaze to drift downwards, in the hopes that some other part of his body might give a clue as to what he was thinking. When Goku's eyes came to rest on the man's black-gloved hands, however, and on what those hands carried, all rationality left him as his heart seemed to stop and a scream tore its way from his throat.

* * *

"Damn it, Kakarot!" Vegeta said again. He still had one hand on the slime-covered wall of earth and was walking backwards, away from the noises of squelching and of a large body being steadily dragged along the ground in his direction.

Vegeta seethed. If he could transform, or gather his _ki_, or trust his superhuman strength, he would be able to simply blast whatever it was into oblivion before continuing on his way. Thanks to the magical properties of this room that that imbecile had led him into, however, he couldn't do any of those things. He was reduced to running away like a common human.

It didn't help at all that the squelching was getting steadily nearer as he backed away. Unfortunately, thanks to the pitch-blackness of the tunnel, he could not go any faster without risking a fall, which would put him at the mercy of the… _thing_… even more than he was now. Besides, the Prince of all Saiyans was determined not to run.

The back of his boot hit something hard.

The obstacle—likely a rock—was completely unexpected, and as a result Vegeta had no time to catch himself. He fell backwards, and he fell hard.

When he hit the ground he landed right on his tailbone, and for a few seconds was only able to lie where he had fallen, gasping in pain. The slime and muck around him threatened to engulf his body, and the moonlight shining down on him was so bright that his eyes watered in pain—

Wait a minute, moon?

Vegeta started taking stock of his changed situation as quickly as he could manage. The moon, he realized as his eyes adjusted, was shining through a hole, roughly a handspan in width, that was punched in the tunnel above him. That must mean…

He was distracted again by the sound of movement in front of him. Finding that he was sufficiently recovered to move, Vegeta leaped to his feet, fists clenched at his sides.

The sight that the moonlight revealed was nearly enough to stop his heart.

* * *

Goku ran back down the hallway with panic speed, so quickly that, somewhere in the back of his mind, he was surprised that he hadn't outrun his own screams of terror. He burst back out through the double doors from which he had come, boots slipping so badly in the puddles beneath the pipes that his feet nearly flew out from under him. All conscious thought had left his mind; the only thing that mattered was to get as far away as possible.

Unfortunately, it never occurred to him that they would be coming at him from both sides.

Goku was so dead-set on getting away from the first masked man that he ran straight into the other one, identically dressed, who was coming at him from the other direction. They both toppled to the floor in a tangle of limbs, and Goku fought to extricate himself, but by that time it was too late: his fall had bought his first assailant just enough time to catch up with him, and he was still frantically trying to push himself to his feet when a set of arms closed around his waist.

Screams of panic, louder than ever, continued to tear from his throat as one pair of strong hands clamped around his wrists, another around his ankles. Frantically, he tried to transform, to levitate, to summon his _ki_—anything. It seemed, however, that his superhuman abilities had deserted him, and at the worst possible time. The people now carrying him away from the exit were a match for him in strength, and struggle as he might, Goku could not break their iron grasp.

They carried him back to _that_ room. From the corner of his eye, Goku could see that there was now a third man in the room—or was it the first? In any case, it didn't matter, especially since there were now three men lowering him onto the table, two of them holding him down while the third secured the straps around his wrists and ankles. When they were done, he couldn't move at all, struggle as he might. It was only when two of the men backed away from him that Goku was forced to face what was coming.

The only one who was still in his range of vision took a step closer. In his hand was the sharpest needle that Goku had ever seen; it was nearly as long as his forearm. Before Goku's horrified eyes, the man pushed the plunger slightly, causing a single drop of clear liquid to gather at the tip.

* * *

Frantically, Vegeta ran. All thoughts of fighting were forgotten. All thoughts of pride were forgotten. The only thought in his mind was to get away, and right now the only way for him to do that was to run as fast and as long as he was physically capable of running.

The slithering noises grew ever closer behind him, as _it_ came after him in hot pursuit. _It_ could smell his blood; he was sure of it.

Once again, his boots slipped in the slime that coated the tunnel, and this time Vegeta's feet slid right out from under him. He cursed as his body executed an ungraceful belly flop, going down roughly with his face in the mud. His landing was soft, but that was no comfort; it only meant that he was in for that much more pain now that _it_ had a better chance of catching him. His heart was pounding so hard it felt as if it were about to jump right out of his chest. Breathing so fast he was on the verge of hyperventilation, Vegeta turned around.

The place where he had fallen lay beneath a much larger opening in the ceiling, and cold moonlight pounded down on them, showing Vegeta a scene right out of his worst nightmares. _It_ now towered above him, countless rows of needle-like teeth gaping from its open mouth, snuffling as its eyeless head swiveled this way and that. Its nostrils flared wider as it lowered its head.

Vegeta scrambled frantically backward, but the slimy tunnel afforded him little traction, and he accomplished little more than flinging more mud against the walls. He certainly didn't manage to move himself away any faster than the giant monstrosity of a worm was coming at him. Try as he might to get to his feet, his legs did not seem to be working properly, and his adrenaline-soaked brain just couldn't manage to remember how to regain his footing on a slippery surface.

Still backing away as fast as he could manage, however, he saw his salvation: a root was protruding from the side of the tunnel. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Even as the hell-worm advanced on him, Vegeta's hand shot out to grasp the root, using it to pull himself to his feet. He managed to start running again just in time to avoid the snap of the worm's fanged mouth, though he still felt the gust of hot and fetid breath that burst against his back.

Vegeta did not look back. He simply ran for his life.

* * *

Sometimes, in the most desperate of circumstances, even ordinary humans can perform feats of superhuman strength. Goku might not have had access to his transformation, or even to his _ki_, but for him, circumstances didn't get much more desperate than this. With his arms and legs strapped down, he could no longer truly flail, but he was still fighting as hard as he could, and in this moment, his struggling paid off. With a great ripping sound, his right arm finally jolted free from the table, along with the strap that was still wrapped around his wrist.

Immediately, the other two white-coated men were beside the table, attempting to restrain him once again, but Goku was far too used to fighting in the direst of circumstances, and he was far too desperate to give up now. Determinedly, he grabbed hold of the end of the free end of the strap and waved his arm about in the air, twisting it away from the hands that attempted to tie him back down, thrashing harder than ever in the hopes of loosening the rest of the straps in turn.

He achieved his goal, but not quite in the way that he'd wanted. As he wrenched his body around in one almighty heave the entire table was upended in a resounding clatter, along with Goku, who was thrown to the floor with one leg and one arm still strapped to its metal surface.

For a moment, everything froze. The white-coated figures stood back from him, their hands held slightly in the air, looking as if they did not dare to move for fear of what he'd do next. Goku, for his part, was so taken by surprise by his new position that for the first few seconds he could only lie where he had fallen as he re-oriented himself. Though his left leg had also ripped free in his fall, the two straps that remained were digging uncomfortably into his wrist and ankle, and the chill of the cement floor seeped persistently through his gi.

Then, everything burst into motion at once. In the same instant that Goku realized he was no longer restrained, the men in white coats moved to descend on him once more.

Goku, however, was quicker. In less than two heartbeats he had pushed himself up from the floor and was hobbling awkwardly across the room, crippled by the table that was still strapped to his back. He dove back through the double doors—the table chose that moment to bang against the back of his head, and he nearly fell over—and ran as fast as he could back down the hallway from which he had come.

All at once, a multitude of footsteps gave chase behind him, and Goku redoubled his speed. He could only move at an awkward hobble and had no access to his _ki_, but in spite of their earlier abilities, even this speed seemed sufficient to keep him just ahead of his pursuers.

Goku didn't know how long it would take him to get to the other end of the hallway, but he covered the cement floor as quickly as he could, the tabletop that he was still strapped to banging violently against his calves and the back of his head with every step, all the while screaming at the top of his lungs.

"VEEEEEEEEEGEEEEEEEEETAAAAAAAAAA!"

* * *

Vegeta's feet slid out from under him once again, this time planting him face-first on the floor of the tunnel, where he ended up with a liberal mouthful of dirt and slime for his troubles.

Spitting equal amounts of curses and mud, he struggled to get his feet back underneath him before _it_ could catch up. All the while _it_ was getting ever closer; he could feel _its_ hot breath on his back, and the accompanying stench alone was nearly enough to overpower him. Something horribly warm and wet dripped onto his back, and he could feel the moisture making its way down his spine as it seeped beneath his armor.

He barely managed to keep enough composure to continue the struggle to his feet… right up until something long, slimy, and very, very wet reached out to curl around his ankle, and he was jerked back, his hands scrambling for nonexistent purchase in the muck and slime around him.

In that second, Vegeta lost all thoughts of his warrior's heritage, or even of Saiyan pride. In that second, his only reality was the terror that pounded through his body, so hard that it produced a physical jolt. In that second, the entirety of his existence boiled down to a single, frantic thought:

He couldn't let _it_ get him.

What tore out of his throat next wasn't a curse, or a battle-cry, or even a cry of effort. It was a full-blown, high-pitched scream of terror.

Before he had even consciously realized what he was doing, Vegeta had swung his hand downward hard on the tongue, which promptly uncurled from his ankle and was retreated back into the worm's mouth with a blood-curdling shriek. The instant he was free he somehow managed to struggle to his feet, and was running down the tunnel as fast as his legs would carry him. His feet slid about in the muck, but he did not fall again, he did not stop, and he did not cease his screaming.

"KAAAAAKAAAAAROOOOOT!"

* * *

It was the strangest sight: one man, dressed in an outfit of eye-blinding orange, his hair spiked up in all directions, was running down the hallway—or more accurately, he was doing the closest thing to running that he could manage with a large slab of metal fixed to his back by one of his legs and one of his arms. Even though the weight did not seem to bother him, with every half-step his arm was jerked back violently, and every half-step after that the upper end of the tabletop slammed against the back of his skull, causing him to pitch forward and nearly fall. Somehow, however, he managed to stay on his feet, his face twisted into an expression of terror as he frantically screamed Vegeta's name without even pausing to draw a breath.

Under normal circumstances, Vegeta would have scoffed at the other Saiyan's lack of pride. These, however, were not normal circumstances: on this occasion, Vegeta was too busy screaming himself to even think about his pride. If anything, the appearance of the orange uniform produced a surge of relief, causing Vegeta to put on a burst of speed, not even noticing that the ground beneath his feet had grown firm once more. Kakarot would know what to do. No matter how desperate the situation or how extreme the danger, Kakarot always managed to find a way, and Vegeta clung to that fact like a drowning man will cling to a piece of driftwood.

It was a mark of just how extreme the situation was that, upon seeing each other, the two Saiyans' first reaction was to rush forward, each desperately screaming the other's name.

"VEEEEEEGEEEEEEETAAAAA! THEY'VE GOT A NEEDLE!"

"KAAAAAAAAKAAAAAAAAROOOOOOOT!"

No sooner had they come within arm's reach than they flew straight into each other's arms, each clinging to the other for dear life. As a matter of fact, they were still clinging when they were brought crashing back to reality by the intervention of a small, and rather shocked, voice.

"…Dad?"

Slowly, Vegeta felt his entire body stiffen. Slowly, he became aware that he was no longer trapped in the slimy tunnel, but that he was now standing on a blank space of floor in a relatively small room, that he was still wrapped in Kakarot's panicked embrace, that right next to them was an open doorway that shed a square of light over the both of them, and that, standing in that doorway, were the Namekian—both of them—Kakarot's brat—both of them—and, potentially worst of all, his own son, all watching with varying degrees of curiosity and amusement.

"Get _off_ of me!" he yelled, violently pushing Kakarot away. Maybe, if he was very, very lucky, the others would believe that Kakarot was the only one who had been doing the clinging.

"Hey!" the other Saiyan yelled, stumbling as he nearly fell on his butt. The metal slab had vanished from his back as if it had never been, and when Vegeta looked down, he saw that his armor was no longer muddy. When he chanced a glance at the floor, he saw that the gloves he had discarded earlier were lying on the ground mere inches from his boot, and that they were just as clean and pristine as when he had first put them on at the beginning of the night.

Slowly, making sure that every movement was the very definition of iron self-control, Vegeta knelt, picked up one of the gloves, and yanked it onto his hand. Even more slowly, he stood, holding onto the other, and turned his head just enough to cast a glare at the smaller of the two Namekians.

"You." Vegeta yanked his other glove onto his hand, keeping his glare locked onto the pint-sized slug all the while. If looks could kill, the Guardian of Earth would have been struck dead on the spot. "Explain. _Now._"

The smaller Namek sighed, as if in impatience, but Vegeta was still gratified to note that his fingers tightened ever so slightly on his staff. Good. He hadn't lost his touch.

"Vegeta, you and Goku wandered into a room that was meant to assist people in overcoming phobias. The idea was to expose the occupants to their irrational fears a little at a time, until they could face them down without a problem. But it isn't ready yet." Frowning, he stepped closer to the doorway (and Vegeta) with visible reluctance. "Nobody should even be going in there until the intensity is properly calibrated." Reaching out a hand, he spun the dial back down to its lowest setting.

Ignoring the rest of the Guardian's explanation, Vegeta turned his attention to more important matters. "Trunks!" he barked.

"Yeah, Dad?" The boy was grinning up at him, eyes wide with delight beneath all the ridiculous paint. He looked as if Christmas had come early.

"You are _not_ going to tell your mother about this. _Ever!_" he added in alarm as he saw Trunks's grin turn devious. "Or you'll never be using the Gravity Room again!"

Whatever answer Trunks might have given was cut short when Kakarot came up behind him. "Aw man Vegeta, I'm sorry about that." Then, however, his grin grew wider. "Do you still wanna sp—"

He never completed his inquiry, due to being forcibly thrown from the Lookout by Vegeta's _ki_-fueled punch.

* * *

**A/N: **Okay, so the inspiration behind this story goes like this: "Thriller" played on my Pandora station, and as often happens when I'm listening to music, I started making up a story to go along with it. I started out picturing a fairly serious and straightforward horror story, right up until I got to that line about cuddling close together... and suddenly, all I could think about was an image of Goku and Vegeta, screaming in terror as they clung to each other for dear life.

At any rate, I figured that this was as good a time as any to try and teach myself how to work with Goku. I know I've said that I do like him in some ways, and the truth is that I like him much better as a comedian than as an action hero.

I was also afraid that I might not be able to get this story out by Halloween, but somehow I managed... with 3 days to spare! Hope you enjoyed!


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